Mombasa County Government is partnering with the State Department for Lands and Physical Planning in the digitization and updating of land records in the Coastal city.
Lands and Physical Planning Principal Secretary Nixon Korir led a team from The Department of Lands and Physical Planning in talks with Mombasa Governor Abdulswamad Shariff Nassir to lay ground over the issue.
Mombasa County Government had requested for collaboration with the Ministry of Lands to sort out the thorny issues of land ownership.
The two teams agreed to select a technical committee that will spearhead the process of supporting the County Government of Mombasa in accessing records of the National Government and working with the Ministry in the digitization process.
The formed technical team will comb through all available land documents before the process of digitization kicks off.
PS Korir said he was encouraged by the proactive manner in which the Mombasa Governor has sought to collaborate with the National Government in the deployment of technology in improving access to land management information.
“In the past it was difficult to work with the County Government. When you reached out we felt that we should quickly roll out.
We have completed digitization for Nairobi and the second County that we wanted to start working on was Murang’a but because of your initiative we will simultaneously work on Mombasa,” said the PS.
The PS stated that the Government will also train and support the County Government on how to use Ardhisasa, the online portal for managing and accessing land management information.
He said access to the Ardhisasa database will support the County Government in planning, collecting revenues, and other County functions.
He said digitizing and making the data available on the portal will be a great boost in the fight against forgeries and other forms of land theft.
Governor Nassir said despite the land size of Mombasa, the County has only 42,000 title deeds in its records and that was why it wants to collaborate with the National Government in the digitization process.
The Governor added that the digitization of land records will help the County Government as well as property owners in valuation processes.
The PS later toured the Mombasa Land Registry where he held a meeting with staff and assured them of his support in serving the people.
By Sadik Hassan
